Riz Virk
Executive Director, Play Labs

Rizwan (Riz) Virk is a successful entrepreneur, angel investor, bestselling author, and indie film producer.

Riz received a B.S. in Computer Science from MIT where his thesis was at the MIT Media Lab, and M.S. in Management from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

Riz's entrepreneurial journey began at the age of 23, with his first startup, Brainstorm. Since then, individually and as managing partner at Bayview (www.bayviewlabs.com), he has been a co-founder or investor/advisor of many startups, including Tapjoy (one of the top mobile advertising companies), Gameview (acquired by DeNA), CambridgeDocs (acquired by EMC), Service Metrics (acquired by Exodus), Funzio (makers of the hit game Crime City, sold to GREE), Telltale Games (makers of The Walking Dead games), Pocket Gems, Discord, Disruptor Beam (makers of Star Trek: Timelines and Game of Thrones: Ascent), and SLIVER.TV (eSports in VR).

Riz's video games have included the mobile free-to-play pioneer Tap Fish, which was downloaded more than 30 million times and acquired by DeNA, and mobile games based on the hit TV shows Penny Dreadful and Grimm.

Riz has produced many indie films, including Thrive: What On Earth Will It Take? (viewed over 20 million times), and the fantasy cult classics Knights of Badassdom, starring Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones, and the Mythica series, starring Kevin Sorbo.

Riz speaks and writes regularly on entrepreneurship, video games, meditation & yoga, and more. His first book, Zen Entrepreneurship: Walking the Path of the Career Warrior, has inspired both entrepreneurs and spiritual seekers worldwide. His startups have been featured in the Boston Globe, Inc. Magazine, Tech Crunch, CIO, and he has been on shows like Coast-to-Coast AM and was even skewered by the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. His next book, Startup Myths: What They Don't Teach You At Stanford Business School, will be coming out in 2017.

Tuff Yen
President, Seraph Group

Tuff is a successful investor, entrepreneur and speaker. He founded Seraph Group, a leading and fast growing super angel/seed investment firm. (www.seraphgroup.net)

Tuff received his Bachelor in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of California Berkeley and MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Tuff worked at leading biotechnology companies Amgen and Genentech prior entering the world of venture capital and entrepreneurship. Beginning in 1994, Tuff spent his first decade by working at large ($8billion) and small ($750million) venture funds in New York City and San Francisco investing in Information Technology, Life Science, Telecom, eCommerice, Consumer Internet and Enterprise Software.

In 2004, witnessed the challenges of angel investing, the fragmented angel group, the inefficient process of raising seed capital, and the lack of institution offering, Tuff invented Structured Angel Fund™ (SAF™), and launched Seraph Group. SAF™ is the first diversified seed stage fund designed for angel investors to access a portfolio of 20+ startups with the ability to co-invest on a deal-by-deal basis. Since then, over 300 investors from 100+ cities joined SAF™ and Seraph invested approximately $50 million into 76 companies.

Besides MIT, Seraph has partnered with the House Fund to invest in the University of California Berkeley community and is looking forward to partner with other leading Universities.

MIT Faculty & Researchers

Scot Osterweil
Managing Director, LUDUS: the MIT center for games, learning, and playful media

Scot Osterweil is the Creative Director of the Education Arcade and MIT Game Lab and a research director in the MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing Program. He is a designer of award-winning educational games, working in both academic and commercial environments, and his work has focused on what is authentically playful in challenging academic subjects. He has designed games for computers, handheld devices, and multi-player on-line environments. He is the creator of the acclaimed Zoombinis series of math and logic games, and leads a number of projects in the Education Arcade, including the MIT/Smithsonian curated game, Vanished (environmental science), Lure of the Labyrinth (math), Kids Survey Network (data and statistics), Caduceus (medical science), iCue (history and civics) and the Hewlett Foundation’s Open Language Learning Initiative (ESL). He is a founding member of the Learning Games Network.

Sara Verrilli
Development Director, MIT Game Lab

At the MIT Game Lab, Sara Verrilli works on experimental game designs, working with other researchers to express their ideas in game forms. She teaches game design and project management, and works with students to develop games. She is currently design lead for Livable Cities, a game about socially responsible real estate development being made for the Samuel Tak Lee MIT Real Estate Entrepreneurship Lab.

Sara started her work in games as a Quality Assurance lead at Looking Glass Technologies, and since then has been a game designer, a project manager, QA manager, and a producer. From 2008 until 2012, she managed the summer game development curriculum for the multiple award-winning Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. She holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree from UC Santa Cruz and is a Certified Scrum Master

Rik eberhardt

As Studio Manager for the MIT Game Lab, Rik Eberhardt spends his days playing Tetris: with people, boxes, tasklists, equipment, money, and time. He is also an instructor for two MIT Game Lab classes on game production and has served as a mentor and director for multiple game development projects including elude, a game about depression produced in the summer of 2010. He is currently working on Livable Cities, a game about socially responsible real estate, and has started work on a new game about Martin Luther, the printing press, and the Protestant Reformation.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William & Mary, is a Certified Scrum Master, a PMI Agile Certified Practitioner, and received an MA Certificate in Serious Games from Michigan State University.

andrew grant

Andre Grant is Technical Director and Lecturer at the MIT Game Lab. Thanks to two wonderfully dedicated game-playing grandmothers, Andrew started playing games before he could hold the cards. From there, he went on to explore board games, strategy games, role-playing games, and computer games. This exploration shows no signs of slowing down.

Andrew graduated from MIT in 1993 with Bachelor's degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics (6 and 18, darnit) and a minor in Creative Writing. After 6 months in the real world, he discovered that someone would actually pay him to design and program computer games, so he returned to his gamer roots by joining Looking Glass Technologies, and then DreamWorks Interactive. Since then, Andrew has survived 13 years as a programmer-for-hire and independent developer in projects ranging from underwater robotics to augmented reality to yet more games.

philip tan

Philip Tan is a research scientist at the MIT Game Lab. He teaches courses in game design and production at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research translates the joy of expert challenge (e.g. in scientific, professional, and competitive fields) into playful forms that are accessible to laypeople. For 6 years, he was the executive director for the US operations of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, a game research initiative.

He has served as a member of the steering committee of the Singapore chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and worked closely with Singapore game developers to launch industry-wide initiatives and administer content development grants as an assistant manager in the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore.

Mentors, Advisors, & Speakers

Rajeev SuratiRajeev Surati, PhDRajeev  Surati did his undergraduate through PhD at MIT and has founded and sold several companies: -Flash Communications to Microsoft which formed the basis for their early IM efforts: (MSN Messenger etc)&nb… — **Rajeev Surati**
Rajeev Surati, PhD
Rajeev Surati did his undergraduate through PhD at MIT and has founded and sold several companies:
-Flash Communications to Microsoft which formed the basis for their early IM efforts: (MSN Messenger etc)
-Photo.net, the world's largest high end amateur photography community.
Based on PhD work at MIT, Rajeev cofounded Scalable Display Technologies which is a premier provider of Immersive Simulation and Entertainment creation technologies. These are life size systems and the company is profitable and based in Cambridge MA.

Mike DornbrookMike completed his undergraduate studies at MIT. As a student, he very successfully ran the campus film and lecture series, the largest student activity on campus, earning him a “business” reputation. When his friends developed Zork, o… — **Mike Dornbrook**
Mike completed his undergraduate studies at MIT. As a student, he very successfully ran the campus film and lecture series, the largest student activity on campus, earning him a “business” reputation. When his friends developed Zork, one of the earliest computer games at the computer game pioneer Infocom, they enlisted Mike to help them out. This marked the beginning of Mike’s long and successful career in gaming. Among his responsibilities at Infocom, Mike dealt with customer issues and, again tapping into his business spirit, saw an opportunity to build paid support services for the game players. While he was at business school at the University of Chicago, the company contracted with him to create the Zork Users Group. Mike published the highly successful New Zork Times mail-order newsletter to sell the game maps and InvisiClues hint booklets he created. After business school, Mike sold his company to Infocom and rejoined them as head of marketing. He launched over forty Top-10 bestsellers, and is particularly proud of championing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After Activision’s acquisition of Infocom, Mike pursued a series of startups of his own, first in consumer products, and then in cellular services, before re-entering the computer games business as co-founder and president of Boffo Games.
Eventually, Mike was recruited to Harmonix Music Systems where he served as COO and was responsible for Harmonix’s Finance, Administration, Legal, HR, Business Development and Marketing. Harmonix’s most famous product, Guitar Hero, became a huge hit, earning critical acclaim and breaking the record for the fastest videogame franchise to hit $1 billion in sales (it went on to sell $3 billion). Rock Band, Harmonix’s next franchise, broke this record by hitting $1 billion in sales in just over one year. Mike handled the major deals for the company, including the game publishing contracts, the Chinese manufacturing of all the drums and guitars, and the sale of the company to Viacom for over $700 million, including earnouts, one of the highest prices ever paid for a game developer, yielding the investors up to 220X.

Noah FalsteinNoah Falstein has been a professional game developer since 1980 (Sinistar, Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, ReMission, Neuroracer), and was one of the first ten employees at LucasArts Entertainment, The 3… — **Noah Falstein**
Noah Falstein has been a professional game developer since 1980 (Sinistar, Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, ReMission, Neuroracer), and was one of the first ten employees at LucasArts Entertainment, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He ran The Inspiracy for 17 years, a game consultancy focusing on entertainment and serious games. Falstein was the first elected Chairman of the IGDA and design columnist for Game Developer magazine for 6 years. At Google, he contributes to game projects across the company including Daydream VR and Tango (AR), and engages with game developers worldwide as part of the VR team.

Rajeev Surati, MIT SB, SM, PhD '99 Scaleable Display Tech, Photo.Net, Flash Communications (Microsoft)

Mike Dornbrook, MIT SB '80
Infocom, Harmonix, Converge Venture Partners

Noah Falstein
Chief Game Designer, Google, LucasArts, Dreamworks

Irfan VirkIn addition to being a co-founder of Bayview, Irfan is an experienced entrepreneur and angel investor, having launched both enterprise and consumer startups.Irfan is currently co-founder of North Bay Solutions, a big data consulting firm. … — **Irfan Virk**
In addition to being a co-founder of Bayview, Irfan is an experienced entrepreneur and angel investor, having launched both enterprise and consumer startups.
Irfan is currently co-founder of North Bay Solutions, a big data consulting firm. Prior to that, He was General Manager at DeNA, a public Japanese mobile game company, running the Gameview division, which he was a co-founder of prior to it being acquired by DeNA.
This included Tap Fish, Tap Ranch, and a number of other mobile games.
Prior to that Irfan was co-founder and President of Asia for CambridgeDocs, which was acquired by EMC.
Irfan was co founder and CEO of eLantix, and COO of Brainstorm Technologies.
Irfan holds BS in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan.
After graduating, he worked for Andersen Consulting leading projects for a number of Fortune 500 clients.

Irfan Virk
Bayview, North Bay Solutions, Gameview (DeNA), CambridgeDocs (EMC)

Gurinder Sangha

Gurinder Sangha is a serial entrepreneur, attorney and academic who is at the forefront of incorporating modern technology into the legal and financial services sectors.

He is the founder and CEO of Lit IQ, which uses advances in computational linguistics technology to help lawyers draft precise and error-free legal documents. He is also a Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. Sangha was the founder and CEO of Intelligize, which helps business professionals research regulatory filings. Intelligize was acquired by LexisNexis.

Prior to founding Intelligize, Sangha practiced securities law at the Hong Kong office of White & Case LLP and the New York City office ofr Shearman & Sterling LLP in New York City, focusing on initial public offerings. Sangha has also consulted for Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.

He speaks frequently and is quoted widely on entrepreneurship, product development, legal innovation and enterprise sales. He has been featured in numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and various industry blogs. Sangha has been awarded multiple honors including being named to Crains New York's "40 under 40" list.

Sangha earned his J.D. at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He received his B.A. in Economics and Commerce from the University of Toronto, graduating with high distinction. He is a member in good standing with the New York State Bar Association.

Gurinder Sangha
Intelligize (Lexis Nexis), LitIQ

Sunny Dhillon

Sunny Dhillon is a partner at Signia Venture Partners, an early stage Silicon Valley venture capital fund. He invests in VR, AR, gaming, ecommerce, and consumer technology companies.

Sunny Dhillon
Signia Venture Partners